Sky tweak

by Silver

Ive been rather busy the last couple of months, working on a mod called "The Threnches". http://www.thetrenches.net. It takes part in world war 1, and therefore we created a lotta huge outdoor maps, and we still managed to keep the r_speed down. how ?

pretty simple... We use the same method as the weaponmodelers do. Hide the backface.

Here we have a simple little outdoor terrain, made using the triangel method, wich is roughly shown here http://www.egir.dk/index.php?page=vhe_terrain.php.

and another one here, taken behind a wall, a few steps to the right

As we can see, the r_speed is around 252/250, wich is very acceptable. But this is only a small part of the map, so the r_speed would be much higher in the final version of the map. Here we have a pic of the same mappart inside valvehammer

(sorry for the crappy pic, but it does the work for now)

Now what we are gonna do, is to hide the unseen aka backfaces. You could use "BLUE" or "insisible" or "skip".

Notes from Egir

SKIP will raise an error if used on a normal worldbrush. The error will look like this:

Error: Entity 0, Brush 0: mixed face contents
Texture SKIP and SKIP
Error: mixed face contents
Description: The map has a problem which must be fixed
Howto Fix: Check the file ZHLTProblems.html for a detailed explanation of this problem

{BLUE and {invisible, requires entity proberties to be transparent (Render_Mode: solid; FX_Amount:255), and will still be rendered. A surface covered with {BLUE or {invisible will add the same amount of polygons as any normal texture, even if invisible.

The only texture I can recomment to this task is the NULL texture, which works with the latest ZHLT and can be found in zhlt.wad. You can download ZHLT from here: http://zhlt.info/download-zhlt.html

But i prefer to use "sky". So now we select the WHOLE map area, and aplly sky texture to it like this.

At this point, we still have a map, but if you try to compile, u just run around, and cant see anything. Therefor we need to reapply the needed textures. this can take a while, espeacially if the map is big. But be carefull, and remember to check that ALL seen faces has a texture. Else you will have a texture glicth in your map. After some texturework, you will have a map that looks like this

and from another angel

As you can see, it looks pretty wierd, but trust me. It helps! Yeah I knew it !! - you wanna have a proof. Well then im gonna give ya one ;)... compile the bastard, and voila.

and behind the wall

by hiding the backfaces, you knocked the r_speed down with about 70/80, wich is pretty much. Considered the fact that we only used sky, and didnt even think about HINT brushes yet You can still fake a lotta things, even thou the HL engine is old.